Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 23, 1994                   TAG: 9411230121
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: C6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

2 NEW INCIDENTS INCREASE WORRIES ABOUT SMALL PLANES

On Monday, an Atlantic Southeast Airlines flight from Atlanta blew four tires after landing at the airport, the Federal Aviation Administration confirmed. The day before, a departing Comair flight was unable to retract its landing gear and had to return to the airport. Neither incident resulted in any injuries.

The FAA had not completed its investigation of the flat-tire incident, said J.D. Barton, manager of the FAA's district flight standards office in Richmond. The Roanoke airport tower reported that the plane appeared to make a normal landing, he said.

In the other incident, the Comair plane was ferried to Cincinnati, where a dirty electrical switch was found to have caused the problem with the landing gear, Barton said. Problems like that are fairly routine and do not appear to be on the rise, he said.

John Hinkle, FAA air-traffic manager at the airport, said he hasn't noticed any significant increase in the number of aircraft-related problems at the airport.

Airport spokesman Mark Courtney said he understood that the ASA flight already had touched down when the brakes locked up, blowing the tires. The plane was able to taxi off the runway, he said.

Any airport has blown tires from time to time, Courtney said, and it's not unusual for small problems to occur occasionally.

These incidents follow warnings last week by the Airline Pilots Association and the International Airline Passengers Association about the safety of commuter airlines. The pilots called for the same safety regulations that are applied to large jet carriers to be imposed on the commuter lines, which fly smaller propeller-driven planes.

Singled out by the passenger group for criticism were the propeller-driven planes of less than 31 seats, which have less stringent safety standards than the larger planes.

Comair flies all of its planes, regardless of the number of seats, under the stricter standards for larger planes, Courtney said. ASA flies 30-seat planes into Roanoke and flies under the FAA standards for smaller planes, he said. Both airlines operate in Roanoke with Embraer EMB-120 Brasilia aircraft, according to the Roanoke Regional Airport Commission.

On Nov. 15, the day after the pilots and passenger group declared their concerns about the regional carriers, an ASA flight from Roanoke to Atlanta was forced to return to Roanoke after one of its engines lost oil pressure and had to be shut down.